TOS Review: Schleich Animals

Ever since I was a little kid I have loved miniatures. It must be genetic, because my kids do, too. So you can imagine the excitement in our house when we received a package from Schleich!
In the box we found eight adorable animals and an enormous booklet of their products. The booklet was almost as exciting as the animals themselves, as the kids drooled over the pictures and started making Christmas wish lists right then and there!
We have actually bought Schleich animals before, and love their sturdy, solid, beautiful quality, but I was completely unaware of several facts about this company. First, they have oh, probably MILLIONS of figurines. Not just the giraffes and monkeys that we loved, but also elephants, penguins, gnus and even animals that I have never heard of before, like the okapi. (pictured here in serious conversation with the horse)

And they don't just have animals, they have "props" like trees and carts and planes and people and fences to go along with the animals. They also have knights, castles, princesses, pioneers and American Indians, fairies, Smurfs, dinosaurs... Yes, our booklet is quite damp from all the drool, and not all of it was the kids'! :) In fact, my husband kept saying that I couldn't possibly write this review with such inconclusive results, and we really needed at least one of each figurine that Schleich produces in order to give a good review. lol

Another thing I learned is that each animal is hand painted with incredible attention to detail. (our horse had silver horseshoes!)

As you can see, the kids have had a great time playing with these animals, but we have also used them as a springboard to learn about new creatures that we had never heard of before. They are small enough to fit into my phonics sound bags for the kindergartners, and we will incorporate them into our geography studies when we "travel the world" again next year.

You can buy these on the site I linked above, or at Target (where we bought our other ones) or you can check out their store locator here. Since there are a lot of different places to purchase, the prices vary. 

If you are interested in what other crew members had to say, click here.

And as always, we received this product free of charge for the purpose of this review but all the raving was because we genuinely love them and enjoy playing with them. 

TOS Review: Salem Ridge Press

My oldest daughter is an avid reader. The kind of kid that usually has two or three (or more) books "going" at one time. The kind of kid that re-reads every book she enjoys, yet greets each new book with delight. Therefor, she was delighted when we were sent three books from Salem Ridge Press to review. Two were ebooks and one was a physical book. She and I read and thoroughly enjoyed the books, which were Soldier Fritz, Mary Jane - Her Visit and The American Twins of the Revolution, but I am really here to talk more about the company overall, than to just give you a book review.

Salem Ridge Press was started by homeschooling graduate Daniel Mills who so enjoyed reading old, out of print books, that he desired to see them republished. He began Salem Ridge Press in November of 2005 with the goal of providing wholesome, moral, character-building books for children to read. The three books that we read definitely meet this goal. 

As a parent, I want the minds of my kids to be filled with thoughts that are true, noble, right, pure and lovely. So it is a relief to me when I find a book that I can hand to my bookworm without concern of what she will pick up from it. I pre-read these books, of course, but I did not have to warn her, debrief her, or feel compelled to explain anything to her about the content of them.

Reasonably priced from $12 to $15 ( a couple were around $25), these books are great additions to any homeschool library. Many of the books can also be purchased as ebooks. And they are organized on the website not just by title, but by time period, genre, author and age as well.

As for Kaytie's opinion, she said that she really enjoyed the stories, she recommends them to any kid who likes to read, and she liked that "words they thought I might not know" were defined at the bottom of the page.

To see what other crew members thought, click here.

I received this product for free for the purpose of this review. All opinions expressed are my own and my daughter's and are honest and true.

Week Two, Term One, 10-11Year

This week was a little harder... the new has worn off and the routine has not yet set in so we had to work a little bit to keep on track this week. I only had to "insist" that Daniel and Abbie finish a couple of things and Daniel has given up altogether on the "too hard" tactic. The hardest thing for them is listening to the science read-aloud without offering up an entirely off-topic opinion every other word. The good thing, though, is that I appreciate Kaytie and Nate's ability to sit still and listen a LOT more and don't mind when they have something to add since it is not a totally random comment.

Kindergarten Math:
They got to use their journals for the first time and Daniel was very very pleased. He begged to do the entire thing (I had several pages made up for him) and was quite disappointed when I restricted him to one page. (Leave 'em wantin' more! is my motto) Their task for their journals was to cut out apples and stick the correct amount in the numbered boxes. They also began working with pennies, clocks, and simple addition this week. It sounds like a lot, but they did awesome!

We played an elephant matching game and fed peanuts to hungry elephants for some number recognition.

Kindergarten Phonics:
We worked on the letter "e". I am happy because at the end of last term (July) they had NO idea what "e" was and insisted on calling it "g" and sounding it as "juh". Now they have it down pat. :) "E says eh!"
We also learned a bit about elephants. Did you know that elephants are afraid of mice? Did you know that an elephant's foot contracts as it lifts, helping to keep it from getting stuck in the mud? Did you know that an elephant spends between 16-20 hours a day eating? That makes me tired just thinking about it... I thought my kids ate all the time!
Our favorite books of the week were: Emma Kate, Goodnight Harry, and Emily and Albert.


Kindergarten Bible:
They learned the verse: Even a child is known by his deeds. Proverbs 20:11 and we discussed the application in great detail. And, surprise surprise, actually had a time or two during the week when we needed to apply this verse! :) We are reading our way through The Beginner's Bible and have finished Noah and the Ark.

3rd and 2nd math:
They learned perimeter this week and LOVED it. It blew me away that when she was using the blocks, Kaytie could figure it in her head faster than I could. I gave them some foam shapes (left over from our "Montessori days") and a ruler and they had fun tracing, measuring, and figuring. It gave us an un-looked for opportunity to discussing adding 1/2 + 1/2. The next day they cut out some of their shapes and glued them into their journals. Kaytie announced that she had been dreaming of this day, when all she had to do in her journal was cut and paste.

3rd and 2nd grammar/spelling:
We started in with verbs... action and state of being. It irks me that even though this is supposed to be review (we've done these lessons once already) they quite obviously have NO IDEA what I am talking about. I don't know what to think, and I don't know what to do...

3rd and 2nd art:
I showed them a picture that was painted recently... in 2006 and they were amazed that it was soooo old! As old as Abbie, even! Kaytie has started working with Drawing with Children because she loves to draw and I want her to have the tools to make her satisfied with her work.

3rd and 2nd history:
We read the myth of Gilgamesh and wrote our own fairy tales. You can read them on their blogs... here and here.

3rd and 2nd geography:
We worked on Vermont and New Hampshire. I didn't like learning two states in one week. I really need a better system. We did learn a little about maple syrup though!

3rd and 2nd Bible:
We learned more about Nebuchadnezzar and discussed pride a little bit. We also memorized John 10: 27-28.

3rd and 2nd Latin:
We worked a little on lesson two, but not whole-heartedly because we know this will be our last week with this curriculum. We got our review curriculum and will be starting it on Monday.

Science:
We learned about currents with a cool experiment that I did not take pictures of... and about tides and tide pools. We worked together to make a tide pool booklet (I think I got it from Homeschool Share).

Handwriting:
We worked on the letter "e" which was much more difficult than "a". Their favorite part of the lesson is getting to choose the body part we form the letter with!

But the highlight of our week was co-op with the cousins and doing science experiments. Ok, so the experiments weren't as much fun as running and playing afterward! :)

I Believe - A 9/11 Tribute

Week One, Term One, Year...?

Our first week of school is over. It went really well. Shockingly well. Workboxes work for us. It also helped that the big kids knew already what to expect and how to handle bumps. They adjusted to having more and longer wait times with grace and ease.
The new table that Daddy built for us was also a enormous help. In the mornings, I put the big kids at the end farthest away so the little kids were close at hand for all the help they needed. Yet, the big kids are still in my direct line of sight which cuts down on the bickering and daydreaming. In the afternoons, the big kids were at my end of the table and the littles could work independently on the other end if they liked, and still be under my watchful eye.
When I set up our plans and our schedule, I kept in mind that I have two different classes and four different kids to juggle and it all worked well. What problems there were we were able to work through with minimum of fuss and tears.
So, without further ado, here is the overview of what we did.

Kindergarten Math:
Their main focus was on counting and number recognition. These concepts were all review for Daniel (although the tasks were not) but something that Abbie really needed. They did many tasks, but this was the favorite, by far...

roll the dice, stamp the correct number of apples, repeat until all the apples are full

Abbie used a home-made dice with the numbers written on it. Daniel knows his numbers and can identify the dots on a regular dice but Abbie can't and I wanted her to work on number identification anyway.

She had just about convinced me that she could not recognize any numbers but 1 and 3 until she did this game. Then, all of a sudden she was eagerly, instantly yelling out each number and then stamping the correct amount of dots without help. Apparently how much she is enjoying the activity directly correlates to her knowledge of the subject at hand.

Kindergarten Phonics:

We worked with the letter a. We wrote it (using Peterson Directed Handwriting), we made it with playdough, we looked for it in books, we colored it, we stamped it, we made its sounds, we traced it with our fingers, we hunted for it in a bag, sewed it as a sewing card, formed it with stones, and discussed it a lot. 

We read books about apples, our favorites being Tucker's Apple Dandy Day, How to Bake an Apple Pie and See the World, and The Apple Pie that Papa Baked.

Kindergarten Bible:

For several years, I have worked to correlate our Bible story with the topic at hand, whatever that happened to be. This year, I am not doing that. I am weary of the struggle, I don't think they notice, and it seems so disjointed (to me, again, I don't think they notice). So we are just reading through a story Bible this year. We are, however, memorizing ABC Bible verses. This week we learned: A soft answer turns away wrath. Proverbs 15:1 and discussed what it means. Then I stole a brilliant idea or two from Carisa, and created a color page and scissor practice page for them.

They love to color.

First they cut the verse into strips. Daniel did this independently, Abbie cut while I held her paper. Then they glued the strips together.

They measured their strips with math cubes, and against themselves.

Here is Daniel illustrating the verse...

A soft answer turns away

WRATH!

3rd and 2nd math:

We reviewed triple digit addition and simple subtraction so that: I could see what they remembered; they could kinda ease back into school; and I could  have an extra week to hunt down the DVD. :)

3rd and 2nd grammar/ spelling:

We had a quick review of nouns and verbs, we  started our journals, and we started memorizing The Goops. For spelling, we worked on Levels 11 and 12 from All About Spelling.

3rd and 2nd art:

Along with learning about Dreamtime artists with the cousins, we studied this painting by Paul Cezanne "Apples". They looked at it, described it to me while looking at it, described it to me without looking at it, and attempted to reproduce it.

3rd and 2nd history:

We talked about Hammurabi and his laws which very nicely segued into the Ten Commandments. They debated about the fairness of some Hammurabi's laws, so I could point out that God's laws are just and better than man's laws. Kaytie also made the connection of Babylon being the city where Daniel lived. We wrote out some laws of our own, too. And I learned that my kids are a little bloodthirsty.

3rd and 2nd Geography:

We started our U.S. Geography with Maine. I am keeping this as simple and streamlined as possible. At this point in their lives, I didn't care to focus on a lot of history or trivia about each of the fifty states. I mostly wanted them to be able to recognize the names of the states and their capitols, know where the state is, and, hopefully, remember state flags, birds, and flowers. So we read books, put together our puzzle, labeled a map, colored the state on a U.S. map, colored the flag, the bird and the flower. Soooo much easier than World Geography for the teacher!!!

3rd and 2nd Bible:

We are learning the story of Daniel with our Bible Story Guide for All Ages. This week, we read about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (I'm not looking those names up, hopefully they are not mis-spelled!) and the fiery furnace. We were impressed with their statement that "even if we KNEW that God would not save us, we will not worship your god". (emphasis mine) And we talked about things that might be idols in our lives, which was quite a new thought to them! :)

We reviewed last year's Bible verses.

3rd and 2nd Latin:

We learned the Latin alphabet and six vocabulary words. Easy and simple. I'm glad we waited a year for this. Then I found out we are going to be reviewing a different curriculum this year, so we are going to have to switch gears next week, or the next. Good thing we are flexible!!

Science:

Our ocean study got off to a great start. The little kids are learning to sit still and listen. The big kids learned about aquatic movement and made our first lapbook piece! Everyone joined in to make the cover and the little kids made a puzzle.

Handwriting:

We worked on the letter "a" and the number "4". The numbers are more for Kaytie in an attempt to get her to stop writing them backwards.

And finally, everyone got a chance to write a bit on their blog. Well, they narrated stories to me, and I typed them in, whilst laughing under my breath.

I'm linking up with weird, unsocialized, homeschoolers this week!

Labor of Love!

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine is an incredible resource, not just with the magazine itself, but their generous, caring spirit that reaches out to all homeschoolers, whether they subscribe to the magazine itself or not. I have not yet received my first issue of this magazine, (I'm hoping it's on its way...) but I have been touched and ministered to by the staff through the Review Crew, the Expo, their page on Facebook, and everthing they offer on their main website. Here is their latest offer of love to you!

The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine is extending an extraordinary
subscription offer to homeschool families. Receive a one-year print
subscription for just $7.95 or a one-year plus current issue
subscription for $12.95. One-year subscriptions start with the winter
issue. The one-year plus current issue starts with the fall issue.
Only 5000 of these special subscriptions are available from August 31
through midnight on September 15. Once the 5000 are gone, they'’re gone! Hurry and grab this crazy price today!

Another Great Find

Are you studying or planning to study Story of the World? Do you lapbook?
Here is a great resource: a free, downloadable, complete lapbook for Story of the World Volume One. She also has activities and ideas and pictures posted here and a whole separate tab for Volume Two that I haven't even looked at yet.
Click here to explore the blog!

Back to School... Fall of 2010

We started our new school year on Monday. The kids were very excited to "move up a grade" and to start new subjects and topics. We didn't have a "Back to School Bash" like we usually do, but the first day was pretty exciting anyway.

The workboxes, all loaded and ready to go.

Their supply boxes and their "welcome" signs, waiting for them to discover.

The fun of opening their box and seeing their new pencil, eraser, and crayons.

Welcome to 3rd Grade, Kaytie!!!

Welcome to 2nd Grade, Nate!!!

Welcome to Kindergarten, Daniel!!!

Welcome to Preschool, Abbie!!!

Despite camera malfunctions (thankfully Daddy was home and fixed it) and Abbie spending most of the day in the bathroom and needing Mommy's help, and some struggles with being a "big kid" and having to do stuff that was "too hard", it was a great first day and everything flowed remarkably smoothly. It's nice having a few years under our belt and knowing how we tick and being able to implement the routine that works for us.
And after supper, we celebrated with cookies and coke floats! An awesome way to finish off an incredible first day back to school.